


Crunch Time

by LeSnailAuthor



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Science Fiction, Short Story, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:46:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29661261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeSnailAuthor/pseuds/LeSnailAuthor
Summary: Mankind endeavours to discover, build, and create. Our best and brightest learn things which change how we view our world, our universe, forever... just make sure you've worked out EVERYTHING that could go wrong before the big and fancy experiments.





	Crunch Time

Breakthrough! It had been decades of work, but the child of scientific labour between Arthur and Sarah Carter had finally come to fruition. They stood in front of their creation, smiles of disbelief growing as they admired the steel bar cage over the stepped, circular base. Bathing in the high of victory, the couple thought back to where their journey began, and how it culminated in the next big step in universal... and historical... understanding. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It all started back in university, with both of them attending the same facility, but with differing courses, as Arthur pursued the field of Physics and Sarah went into Engineering. And yet, it wasn’t their studies that brought these two brainiacs together, but a shared interest that intertwined their lives together, and that was a fascination with a science fiction staple… _time travel_ . Upon discovering this mutual hobby, they spent many breaks sharing stories and theories that they had heard and formulated, learning from each other. Once their time in higher education ended, it was _not_ the case for the couple’s (quite literally by this point) gushing over time travel. PhDs in hand, they both jumped into employment and grabbed a small place of their own, a personal lab for the two time-nerds. They couldn’t wait to get to work on their time research, but there was one distraction they needed to get out of the way first… 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

**_Wedding bells ring_ **

~~~~~~~~~~~~

With a piece of paper legitimising their coupling, they could now put their full attention to their research. Even their honeymoon contained a lot of work, I mean who _doesn’t_ want to write out entire whiteboards of equations, graphs, and random Greek letters on one of THE most romantic nights of your life? From there it was slow, arduous, repetitive work, they would theorise, scrap it, then start again. Blueprints would be drawn out, only to be scrunched up and thrown away. Many years went by with no progress, and the frustrated couple grew weary, the spark of imagination slowly fading. Not even taking inspiration from other physicists gave them energy; Albert Einstein, Ronald Mallett, they even read papers from Stephen Hawking, to see if any link could be made to black holes. It was a dead end. Arthur had stayed up for three days trying to figure _something_ out. 

“Listen, we’re both tired from this, we’ve been working almost non-stop for nine years now.” Sarah told Arthur in a soothing tone, “we haven’t been out of the flat in three weeks...let’s take a walk tomorrow, there’s that beach nearby, we could go there!” her husband smiled. 

“Sounds wonderful, better get some sleep.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The walk they took was both physically and mentally refreshing; being able to stretch their legs, let their minds rest and take in fresh air had them feeling better almost immediately. Arm in arm, they walked along the damp sand as the choppy waves washed along the shore. 

“It’s almost two o’clock, we should probably head back.” Sarah pointed out. 

“We’ve travelled pretty far for having not moved for more than a fortnight.” Arthur said, looking over his shoulder. 

“That's fine, look, we can do a ‘Hansel and Gretel’ but instead of breadcrumbs we’ve got our footprints.” replied Sarah, waving her foot over the boot print she had just made. 

“Hah, you’re right…” suddenly, the physicist went quiet, “...hold on…” his engineer partner looked at him. 

“What is it?” 

“Footprints…” his eyes nearly popped out of his face, _“it’s FOOTPRINTS!”_

“Yes, they’re footprints, because we _walked_ here, what’s your point?” the scientist's confused wife stated. Arthur laughed. 

“No, not those, TIME!” 

“Time? That’s…” suddenly Sarah finally understood what her husband was saying. “... just like how a foot can leave an imprint in the sand, actions in the physical world will leave a traceable dent in the universe that can be observed?” 

“Yes! Whether it’s a planet revolving around a star or a person lifting up a mug of hot chocolate, they'll disturb the universe on the atomic level and just like how when elements react they may generate something new, perhaps our universe creates another element or form of matter as these different materials collide?” looking into each other's eyes, the spark that was once fizzling out, now flushed with an oxygenating drive, and grew to the original passion they had those nine years ago. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Work had begun again in earnest. They called in every favour they had and scraped together every penny they could, even if it meant scraping off a little grant money, just to even have base materials for their work. The struggle was not in vain, however, as after another five years of research, they made their first big discovery... _shadow matter_. 

“It’s snap shots of objects in the very fabric of the universe; they’re made of bubbles grown in between normal and dark matter” Arthur described it. More years passed as Sarah worked tirelessly, using the research her physicist husband had done to create the tools needed to tap into this new energy. Prototype after prototype, different power sources and swapping out of exotic elements and from where they were in university to where they are now thirty years of work, finally it was done, a way to pick up the faint traces of shadow matter and follow it back to a previous point in time. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

**_Click_ **

**_Whirr_ **

**_Bleep_ **

**_~~~~~~~~~~~~_ **

It was ready. 

No more waiting, it was time to test out their creation. Arthur suited up in a harness with a large box on the front. 

“This is your way back,” Sarah explained, “it contains a signal directly linked to the machine, it doesn’t just create a path to follow, but essentially a beacon that can be latched onto so we don’t have to backtrack to find you.” both were giddy with excitement! 

“I know in essence it’ll be a three dimensional photograph, but to actually _stand_ in a _previous era_ is just- is just-” he couldn’t finish his sentence, there were no words that could accurately describe the feelings about what they were about to achieve. “I’m ready.” 

The switch was flipped, the time machine rumbled into life and the two scientists were not only about to make, but _visit_ history. A white light filled the open cage that Arthur stood in, Sarah covered her eyes to protect them from the brightness. Arthur felt a strange sensation run through his body, as his matter disappeared from his time. Despite his eyes no longer being solid, the harsh white light still persisted to him until finally… 

It felt like time was slowing down, as a new landscape opened up before the awe inspired physicist, his physical form beginning to regenerate around his unbound, free floating mind. This wondrous vision, this amazing sense of achievement, what knowledge can be gained for the benefit of- actually hang on a moment. 

Yeah we’re in the middle of the greatest breakthrough in science for God knows how long, but something began to nag at Arthur; he was a physical point in the universe, he was following another physical point in the universe, if he stuck with his idea of time being a series of footprints then what he’s done is to jump out of his own path and into another, not only is he now a secondary object on the same path as another, but he was removed from his time to be added, cut and paste if you will, into another, he is matter taken from where he does belong and put into a place where he does not, what would happen if a chunk of universe was instantaneously ripped from its place in the fabric of reality and was forced into an area with no space to offer- _oh God_. 

It was a split second event, once all the atoms that made up Arthur had entered the new moment in time and space, the surrounding matter couldn’t spread fast enough. The scientist was crushed with the force of the entire universe coming down on him, though as his entrance was instant, he did bring enough energy to create a shock wave that devastated the surrounding area. On the other end of the timeline, the opposite had happened, where Arthur had once been whole, with the need to be filled it sucked in nearly everything around it including the close by engineer, forcing them down to a shape not _too_ dissimilar to pasta. The experiment was a success, well 90%... 75%... let’s say a generous 60% and leave it at that. I mean it _worked_ , more or less, it was just a small oversight… 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wonder if meat noodles can win the Nobel prize? 

**Author's Note:**

> This short story came from an idea I had about how time travel could work (possible realism withstanding) and the unforeseen problems of altering the very fabric of the universe.


End file.
